Eve Online - An economic sandbox?
This entry was created by a student in Stanford's Rhetoric of Gaming class. For more about the class and the assignment, click here.
This is a prewrite for my topic of interest in the use of video games for simulating complex economic markets, mainly the video game EVE Online. EVE is an incredible game in many ways. Its super realistic in its depiction of a future space empire, in that it takes forever to get anywhere, its tediously mathy, and it is full of space jerks and space pirates. But the main thing about the game is how it has a massive economy that is pretty much all controlled by the players that dedicate thousands of hours into developing the economy. The result is a functioning economy that surprisingly mirrors the real economies of the world. s'crazy!
There have been many many articles on the economies of video games, and I have come across a bunch so far in my research. The most notable one so far is a series of professionally published online journals that feature detailed analysis of the market of EVE Online from a renowned Icelandic economics professor, the dean of economics in the university of Reykjavik, Eyjolfur Gudmundsson. It shows specific info about the trends that have appeared from the gameplay of the players inside the world, with analysis of data that has been collected internally. These notes appear starting fiscal year Q4-2007
http://ccp.vo.llnwd.net/o2/pdf/QEN_Q4-2007.pdf
all the way to most currently Q2-2009
http://ccp.vo.llnwd.net/o2/pdf/QEN_Q2-2009.pdf
These notes are very comprehensive, and feature specific data and graphs about changing prices and economic news in the world. Its surprising how realistic the economy is depicted in these papers, as they show economies that work just like real ones. And, of course, an economics professor is the analyst of the data, and it seems to follow rules that govern other economies. Because of the strong focus in trading, it is not surprising that so much of the papers focus on raw material trading indexes.
I don't actually know too much about real-world trading processes, but I can say that the one that is set up in EVE online seems comprehensive.
Comments
Sounds very interesting. I never realized how extensive video game economies could really be. Great topic.
Posted by: Forrest Berg | October 13, 2009 09:42 PM
If you don't know about economics yet, I'm sure you will by the end of this project. Do you play Eve? If not, do you think this will be for your research?
Posted by: Franklin | October 13, 2009 09:46 PM
Charlie
Your topic seems very interesting focusing on EVE but writing for an international audience I think you need some more description here to clarify for your reader. Focusing on the economy in EVE seems very good and cool but I wonder if there will be enough data. If there is then go for it because it seems specific and with plenty of material to develop. Also maybe some more data from the article would be nice. I like that you are very interested and again this topic is sweet. I like where you are headed but as someone who knows nothing about the market I need some more description and more from your sources
Posted by: JD Haddon | October 13, 2009 09:52 PM
In the real world people do not work with such persistence and obsession in online games.
Posted by: Eve Online | October 14, 2009 09:24 PM
Hey,
Your topic is pretty interesting. Have you looked into the other parts of the EVE "economy?" i.e. the piracy and scams (most notably the EVE Investment Bank scam). The ability for individual corporations to declare wars definitely adds something extra to the economic equation.
Posted by: Matt | October 16, 2009 07:37 AM
While I only have basic knowledge of how Eve works from playing the free trial, it is definitely a fascinating topic because you can use games (and especially MMOs) to add a human perspective to what would otherwise be bland 'movies', and I have no doubt that economic simulations are no exception. In fact, the implications of being able to use these as a 'sandbox' for economics could be astounding, considering the difficulty in figuring out how a new rule will impact the financial system.
But unfortunately, due to the anonymous nature of the internet it also opens the door to new problems as people do things they would never do in real life, as another commentator pointed out. For example, me and my brother in law used to play Ultima Online (the first commercialized 'MMO') when it first opened up. At the time a rebellious counterculture started from the lack of authority within the world. There were countless players who would sit outside houses that people worked hard for months to obtain, kill the owner, and take everything he owned including the house. They would also hang around places where players could gather resources and kill them for laughs, which lasted until they finally created a new 'world' where game rules prevented the killing of other players. Even in games where rules are established against this, groups of players will look for ways to exploit these rules. Some groups will even do it all at once on a mass scale to cause as much chaos as possible.
It also didn't take long for 'hackers' to put their skills to work. They quickly found ways to counterfeit money (which was one of the reasons behind the heavy inflation of the market) and add new items to the game that the developers had nothing to do with. One example would be the unique clothing colors that now exist such as true black, which is now common throughout the game. Is there anything like this in Eve, and how might it alter the economic simulation?
Most MMOs have their own unique way of handling this issue, have you considered using them as a comparison? Another point of interest might be how it ties into our own economic system, with people paying real money for virtual possessions within these systems, almost forming new versions of virtual currency. But either way it's definitely an interesting topic worth looking into.
Posted by: Bret Weeks, City College of New York | October 21, 2009 12:16 PM